The term “hypertext” is used to describe text, or strings, with links to other documents. For example, a string may include the word “Keats”; this word could then have a link to another document with the title “English Poets”. These links are referred to herein as “hyperlinks”. Hyperlinks are used between computers in computer networks.
A notable use of hyperlinks is on the World Wide Web (WWW). In this context, the operator of an end-user computer uses a “browser” to view a published page received from a first web computer. The published page may have a “hyperlink”, which, when activated, results in a call to a second web computer, or server. More particularly, the published page may have the hyperlink “Keats”, which, when activated, causes the transfer of control to a specified university computer with a file providing information on “English Poets”.
Thus, each hyperlink includes the name of an associated file and on which computer that file is stored. The name of the computer and the file are combined into a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A typical URL is http://SU/123. This URL is an instruction to retrieve the file 123 from the State University computer “SU” using a method called Hypertext Transport Protocol “HTTP”. A URL may also be used to invoke a specified function on a remote computer, with the remote computer returning the results of the invoked and executed function.
Often this function is limited to simplistic functions that, in some systems, may vary based on a profile of a user. Such profile parameter may be included with metadata such as a “cookie” and is entered automatically upon hyperlinking. To date, this is often the only type of parameter that is transmitted during the execution of a hyperlink. Once the hyperlink is executed, the user must often interact with the linked file, or site, to manually enter any parameters required by the site.